I Have a Virtue? No way!
September 22, 2006
For someone who isn’t really known for virtuous patience, I’ve developed quite a high tolerance meter. I attribute the vast majority of that growth to my job (which requires much more patience than one person should have to exhibit).
Yesterday I spent four hours trying to explain the same thing over and over to The Screamer. She never did get it. I spent ten minutes trying to wake one guy up. Don’t think that’s very long? Try it. Keep repeating someone else’s name in varying volumes and pitches for ten minutes. You’ll see how frustrating it is.
Dealing with the med seekers without jumping the counter to unleash a few well-deserved blows about the face and neck should score me some patience points as well. For example, immediately after receiving a newly-ordered injection for pain, a patient asked the med nurse if she’d still be getting her pain killers and Xanax later in the day. She already spends much of the day in a near-comatose state. Apparently the idea of being awake and alert is just too much for her to handle. When she dozes off in mid-sentence during her therapy session with the psychologist she’ll no doubt blame it on “all the drugs they have me on”.
And, when I had to skip lunch today because I was too busy dealing with discharges, I didn’t take it out on anyone else. Even though I was about to chew off my own arm or digest myself from the inside, I kept a smile and never let my starvation be known. What made matters worse was that today was food day and there was a big plate of food sitting at my desk waiting for me. But by the time I made it back to indulge, it had grown skin, started moving, and asked not to be eaten. So I had to pass.
They say patience is a virtue. I may not be number one on the “2006 Top Ten Virtuous People” list that some tabloid magazine is sure to publish any day now. But I can put a check in the patience box, none the less.
What’s to become of me next? Celibacy? Oh wait… never mind… I guess I’ve got two virtues after all…
Posted in Human Nature, Personal
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:21 pm
“What’s to become of me next? Celibacy?”
I will sooooo not comment on your “virtue.”
(snicker)
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Come on… admit it… there’s an aura about me that’s almost, dare I say… angelic?
September 24th, 2006 at 9:36 am
It must be really fun being one of your patients, right, they get away with just about anything? I know it’s wrong to say that about sick people. Just would love to give it a go one day to see how it feels…
“it had grown skin, started moving, and asked not to be eaten. So I had to pass.” Gross!
September 24th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
The hospital is addicting for some people. They look at it as a “vacation” from the real world… where the same rules don’t always apply. And since half of them never pay for it, it’s like a FREE vacation!
And yeah… the food was gross. A part of me is glad I had to pass on it. If it did that after sitting out for a little time… I can only imagine what it’d do inside the human body. Haha.
March 25th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
You said, “But by the time I made it back to indulge, it had grown skin, started moving, and asked not to be eaten.” Next time, go for cooked food instead of live.
In fact, you do sound fun to talk to. Good sense of humor and all. But of course people who do notice your good points aren’t the same people who need to come visit you!
You said, “The hospital is addicting for some people.” This would explain why blood pressures actually drop once patients get admitted to the hospital. They know they’ll be taken care of. They can drop their daily worries for a while. It’s like being back home sick and having mama take care of you.
March 26th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Well when you’re eating hospital food there’s no guarantee that it’s been cooked :P
We had patients come in to the hospital “for a vacation”. In fact, some of them were there often enough that we had to pointedly remind them that it was a hospital and not a resort.